


Notebook Paper

by Epiphanyx7



Category: High School Musical
Genre: Angst, Community: cliche_bingo, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Other, Secret Admirer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-21
Updated: 2009-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanyx7/pseuds/Epiphanyx7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Look, everyone gets it, okay, you don't have to go crazy reminding us all how fucking gorgeous you are. It's distracting. How the holy hell is a guy supposed to concentrate on algebra if all I want to do is kiss you senseless</em>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notebook Paper

**Author's Note:**

> [[Written for Cliché Bingo 2009. Cliché: Secret Admirers]]

The letter that falls out of Sharpay's purse when Ryan drops it into the back seat of the convertible is written on notebook paper. That's the only reason Ryan even notices, because notebook paper is so not Sharpay's style. His sister has stationary for every occasion - even for passing notes in class. He doesn't even know that it's a love letter, until he reads it, unfolding the paper and realizing that it's more than one, it's three sheets folded together.

The page on top starts with _You're fucking beautiful, I almost hate you for it_ , and it's not like Ryan's ever even had a lot of willpower. Of _course_ he's going to read the rest. Sharpay's gossiping with one of her friends by the school exit, discussing one of the majorly epic texting wars that's been the cause of social upheaval for the past eight hours. Well, great for her, but Ryan's got nothing better to do than further invade her privacy. (She leaves her diary out for Ryan to read and comment on, this is no big deal at all.)

Most of the letters Sharpay keeps are like, overly flowery prose with indecipherable metaphors, written by English nerds too creative to string words together properly. Sharpay keeps the ones written on fancy stationary, or the ones that come with artwork, and most of the time she only keeps them so that Ryan can read them out loud to her and they can laugh at the idiocy of whoever wrote it. The fact that this letter is written in plain English and on paper torn from a school notebook says something, but Ryan's not sure what.

The author is pretty obviously the kind of guy Sharpay would never date. The wording is rough, straightforward, blundt to the pint of rudeness but in the kind of pathetically desperate tone that means it was written with feeling. Whoever it is, it sure isn't Zeke, who thinks the sun shines out of Sharpay's ass and would never write _Perfectly poised and as arrogant as all hell when you order people around as if they belong to you_.

The page ends with _I don't even know why I like you, for fuck's sake_ , and Ryan flips to the next, expecting it to continue from there. Instead, it's an entirely different letter, even though the handwriting is the same. This one begins with _Look, everyone gets it, okay, you don't have to go crazy reminding us all how fucking gorgeous you are. It's distracting. How the holy hell is a guy supposed to concentrate on algebra if all I want to do is kiss you senseless_?

Laughing, Ryan glaces over to make sure Sharpay hasn't run out of gossip yet, and then he keeps reading. The person writing it is -- kind of adorable, actually, in a stupid sort of way.

 _It's fucking ridiculous, actually, how good you look sometimes,_ he reads. The whole page is like that, covered in profanity and insane compliments, the anonymous person managing to sound both hopelessly in love and mildly pissed off about it.

Ending with _I'm too much of a coward to say any of this shit to your face_ , this one isn't signed either. Ryan folds it with the first, moving on to the last sheet of paper.

 _Look, I get that I'm like, beneath your notice or whatever. I totally don't mind that you don't think I'm worth your time, and I'm pretty certain that you're right about that, anyways. I shouldn't even be writing you, but I just - I can't stand it, the way I turn into this total fucking moron when you look at me. I'm nervous any time you talk to me, and I just say whatever stupid thing pops into my mind and I end up coming off like a total asshole. I can't fucking help it, an you're totally fucking oblivious_.

Skimming over the page, Ryan's eyes pause at the phrase 'crazy bitch of a twin,' and he immediately skips to that because, um, hello.

And it totally makes no sense the first three times he reads it.

 _Maybe I'd be able to tell you how I feel, except I'm seriously scared of your crazy bitch of a twin_ , it says. Which is totally offensive and like, he's not fucking crazy. He's awesome, Sharpay's the crazy one. And maybe Ryan's a little bit slow on the uptake, because it's not until the fourth time he reads that sentence that it occurs to him that maybe the author isn't calling him crazy.

Ryan's always been the quieter one, the talented follower, and so it makes no sense for someone to describe him as crazy. Although, Ryan knows he can bitch with the best. He's co-president of the drama club for more than one reason. 

So, yeah. He takes a moment to be horribly offended -- no wonder Sharpay didn't show him these -- and then he remembers that wait, no, Sharpay's the crazy one. Everybody knows that. Except if the letter is referring to Sharpay, that means that it was written to Ryan, and she didn't show him the letters because of a totally different reason.

Once the thought occurs to him it's hard to shrug it off, even if Sharpay like, needs a secretary to sort her fan mail, and Ryan's never had a secret admirer or gotten a love letter in his life. And it would be totally easy to dismiss, if the letters had used her name even once, started with _Dear Sharpay_ or something.

But they don't. It's instantly infuriating because while the author made it pretty damned obvious that he's writing to one of the Evans twins, he's also managed to not specify which twin he's writing to. And Sharpay is exactly the kind of ego-centric self-absorbed person that she'd never even consider that the letter was for Ryan instead of her.

He flips through them again, trying to look for any hint of gender, name, a fucking pronoun somewhere -- and there isn't one. At all.

It's almost as if the asshole who wrote it was intentionally keeping it from being clear which blond Evans sibling he had it bad for --  
And that's probably the truth, Ryan realizes with a miserable sinking feeling in his stomach. If some closeted jock was caught writing love letters to the East High drama fairy, there would be an epic shitshow to put the Fall Texting Wars to shame.

So if the love letter really is for Ryan, then the deeply closeted guy who wrote it wanted everyone to assume the letter was for Sharpay. After all, then he'd be one of many hopeless admirers, somewhere so far off of her radar that she'd be asking Zeke for home-baked cookies before she could remember the other guy's name. And that meant he could hide behind Sharpay, even if he really wanted Ryan.

As if the two of them are _interchangeable_.

Folding the letters, Ryan drops them  back into Sharpay's purse and leans back in the front seat of the convertible. It's like, horrifyingly insulting actually, that this person couldn't sign their name to a letter addressed to no one, or even address the letter and leave it anonymous - it's got to be both, like they're so afraid that someone's gonna recognize their handwriting and then out them to the whole school. Like there's nothing in the world worse than everyone knowing they like guys.

Secret admirers and anonymous love letters are all fine and dandy, but it's like this guy is actually _ashamed_ of himself. 

Fuck that noise, Ryan thinks. No wonder Sharpay didn't show these to him -- all the compliments don't even begin to make up for the insult of not saying his name. And she kept them, too, even though they were written on lined paper and hadn't been worded in flowery prose. His sister is something else, Ryan realizes.

Sharpay finally gets into the driver's seat, cellphone snapping closed decisively as she arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow in his direction. "Don't look so mopey, Ry, or you'll wrinkle," She chides softly.

"I'll look distinguished," Ryan says, pushing down the brim of his hat to hide his eyes. "You're the one who needs to worry about getting older, Shar."

Her overly dramatic mock-horrified gasp makes him feel a little better.

"You know, you've got like, atrociously bad love letters in your purse," Ryan says after a moment.

"I wanted to know what you thought of them," Sharpay says evenly as she pulls out of the parking lot, heading towards home. "They didn't bore me."

"Toss them," Ryan adjusts his hat and flicks on a pair of sunglasses, turning to smile at his twin sister.

She glances over at him, surprised. "You sure?"

Sharpay may be a self-absorbed ego-centric drama queen, and a manipulative bitch besides, but she's fiercely protective of him. She may hide it pretty well, but she really does love him a lot. "Yes," Ryan says. "They're not worth keeping."

-  



End file.
